At least some known wind turbines include a rotor having multiple blades. The rotor blades are sometimes coupled to a hub that is in turn coupled to a housing, or nacelle. The nacelle is positioned on top of a base, for example, a truss or tubular tower. The rotor blades transform mechanical wind energy into induced blade lift forces that further induce a mechanical rotational torque. The induced torque is used to drive one or more generators, subsequently generating electric power, or alternatively to pump a fluid and/or grind a substance.
At least some known wind turbines have a mechanism to adjust a pitch angle of each rotor blade. The pitch angle is an angle that determines each of the blades' orientation about a longitudinal axis of the blade. At least some known pitch adjustment mechanisms include a pitch motor operating a pinion gear that acts on a ring gear coupled to the blade.
In at least some known wind turbines, a plurality of teeth of the ring gear may become worn over time, decreasing an efficiency and reliability of the pitch adjustment mechanism. Moreover, an extent of such gear tooth wear is difficult to quantify. Templates are known that may be inserted between the flanks of adjacent gear teeth, allowing a wear of the gear teeth to be estimated by comparing a distance between the adjacent flanks to a known template width. However, such known templates provide only an estimation of a combined wear on both flanks of the two adjacent teeth, rather than a measurement of the wear on an individual tooth flank. Moreover, such known templates do not provide a repeatable measurement at a consistent location on each tooth flank that may be used to compare wear between two different times for a given gear tooth, between one gear tooth and another gear tooth on the same gear, or between gear teeth on similar gears associated with different blades or different wind turbines. Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop a method and/or a system that facilitates a repeatable and reliable measurement of the wear at a consistent location on each flank of each gear tooth.